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Recent Volar Press

So we've had some very kind folks cover some of our recent and upcoming releases in the past weeks, and we thought we'd take the chance to collect those here in one place.

First off, among our slate of upcoming releases, we've got Vol. 2 of the Strange Mutations 7" box set, ft. new records by Lenz, Fine Steps, Cosmonauts, and Teenage Burritos, whose "Danya" 7" you can read about over at Lo-Pie. Fuzz Drench has a little post about the Cosmonauts 7" here. More on this set soon enough, we assure you. (Check out Vol. 1, ft. new 7"s by Eat Skull, Beaters, Audacity/Big Eyes, Stalins of Sound, and Far Corners here)

Teenage Burritos // Danya 7″
Volar Records3.7/5 PiesRecommended Track: Danya
Teenage Burritos is a band whose name confuses the hell out of me. Is
it referring to teenagers who eat burritos or the types of burritos
that teenagers prefer to eat or just really fucking old burritos? I say
this because I’m equally confused about the tracks “Danya” and
“Kamikaze”, off of the forthcoming 7” “Danya” (Volar Records).
My confusion comes not because of any inaccessibility on their
end–it’s pretty straightforward stuff–or whether or not I like it (I
really do). I think this single befuddles me because I’m not sure why I
like it so much. There’s really nothing new going on here, but it’s
absolutely infectious. The hooks are wonderful. It’s got the right
amount of energy, well above the vocal and melodic detachment of similar
sounds. It’s like they’re doing the same thing that many other bands
have, but the particular configuration of these familiar elements adds
up to something different. The guitar licks (deedle, deedle) are fun.
The songs are about stuff The Okmoniks might have agreed with.
In the end, I need to stop thinking about this and just listen to it
over and over and over again. It’s pretty great, logic be damned.

Everybody Taste also covers the original version of the great b-side to the TB 7", "Kamikaze", which you can find on their OOP s/t cassette on Burger Records. The newly recorded version features additional backing vox and synth by our buddy Andreas of the great Swedish band Holograms.

Via Everybody Taste:
"Fantastically named San Diego band Teenage Burritos—who already have an out-of-print cassette via Burger Records—are set to put out their first 7" on Volar Records featuring A-side "Danya"
and my current obsession, "Kamikaze," on the flip side. A frisky guitar
line, snappy drumming, and an instantaneously addictive vocal lead dose
this charismatic recorded-in-the-garage-fidelity nugget with a classic
unglued from time sort of quality that has me hitting play over and over
again. Dig into the tune below, and look out for the forthcoming wax
from Volar as well as a future full-length due out on Burger/Volar."

The Unexcused also has some nice things to say about "Kamikaze" along with the proper recording of the track.

Via The Unexcused:
"I hereby dub the Teenage Burritos
new track “Kamikaze” the official song of Spring 2013. While the Boston
weather stubbornly sticks with a motif of Winter I’m looking forward
with eyes set on baseball, cheap beer, & backyard cookouts. So by
the power now vested in Teenage Burritos and their absolutely stellar
new song “Kamikaze” – I politely say piss off Old Man Winter, your time
has come.
“Kamikaze” will be available soon via 7″ through one of my favorite labels, Volar Records. Like them on FaceBook for further updates."

"Soft Riot is an appropriate name for this London based musical act. Deeply ominous and fervently brooding, Soft Riot's new LP No Longer Stranger
is an electronic tour de force. Jack Duckworth, former Vancouverite and
mastermind behind Soft Riot, is no rookie when it comes to compelling
electronic music. No Longer Stranger is being released through San Diego's Volar Records and is available for purchase on the Volar Records site.

No Longer Stranger is a pulsing electronic black hole
filled with riveting synths and walloping drums and bass. It could be
the soundtrack to a fine mugging in a dimly lit Eastern European brick
alley with neon graffiti and rats galore or perhaps, a delicious maggot,
worm, and blood feast with Corey Feldman and Jason Patric in a dreary
cave surrounded by bleach blonde mullets and feather earrings. No Longer Stranger is a dark musical surge you can't afford to miss.

Our friends at the great 20 Jazz Funk Greats also had some pretty interesting things to say about No Longer Stranger and share the track "A Simulation" (which I'm in the process of planning out a video for):

"In Faith of Our Fathers, Philip K. Dick imagines a conventionally
nightmarish post-war Communist global order. Then he introduces drugs.
Our hero, Chien, being fed anti-hallucinogens by a cabal of dissidents,
is able to see God. Who seems intent of fucking with him.

At the inception of all this, sitting at home, Chien freaks the fuck
out watching their Glorious Leader via a form broadcast into his living
room. Suppressing the ambient hallucinogens in the water supply for the
first time, the Leader is replaced by a metallic simulation. All
whirring, pointing squawking and generally upsetting the veneer of order
in Chien’s proto-dissident life.

Soft Riot‘s attempt at capturing this moment via of the medium of EBM works eerily well.

A grand processional march for our Leader/Simulacrum’s TV show.
Clipped synths tower over some gated drums, though these synths sound
slightly unfinished. Decaying in a way that makes them the
disconcerting, aural equivalent of the Ryugyong Hotel*:
looming and out of place. This slight off-ness extends all the way
through to Jack Duckworth’s words, which hang over the silences as well
as the skittering drum machine."

"Recently released, No Longer Stranger is the new record from London based Minimal Synth artist Soft Riot. No Longer Stranger
was originally conceived at an EP, but expanded into an eight track
mini-album for this release and serves as an interim before Soft Riot's
next album proper, Fiction Prediction, due in a couple of months.

No Longer Stranger is a collection of moody, atmospheric
tracks, driven by vintage machine beats and warbling arpeggios.
Combining late 70s synthesizer cinema music (the kind of stuff in horror
and Sci-Fi movies in the years just before the music the SynthWave
scene adores kicked off) and the metronome sparsity of early Cabaret
Voltaire, with a little whispered Soft Cell sleaze, Soft Riot deliver
something, not to make you move on the dancefloor, but to soundtrack
your walk home after the club has shut, through dark city streets.
Pulsating analog basses and white noise snares provide the basis for
haunting, glowing melodies and Soft Riot’s enigmatic growl, from the
Numanoid Your Secret Light Shines At Night to the acid nightmare SynthPop of Your Strange New Career via the dystopian psychedelic of Tragic Magic, No Longer Stranger isn’t always comfortable listening, but ultimately rewarding. Check out A Simulation, the album’s one dance tune, that works a little early Skinny Puppy and a hint of Electro Boogie into the mix."

Also, I Die You Die showed some love for Soft Riot's "Cinema Eyes" off
the upcoming Fiction Prediction LP on Volar/Other Voices (more on that
soon) as well as the soon-to-be-released London synth comp And You Will
Find Them in the Basement on Desire Records."

Tropical Popsicle // Dawn of Delight
Volar Records3.75/5 PiesRecommended Track: Tethers
"Tropical Popscicle’s Dawn of Delight is a wonderful record.
It has a pop sensibility and covers a wide variety of moods. From the
doomy “Universe of God Shadow” to the almost sweet Barrett-esque folk of
“The Omni-Present Heart Shield”, there is a multi-directional tinge to
the entire record but the band maintains a consistent aesthetic, further
developing their sound as a whole."
(read the rest at the link above)

TransWorld Surf also had some kind things to say:

Lastly, Surfing Mag ran a nice little interview and feature with Beaters back in January. Check it out below.

STREAM/ORDER/DL the debut limited clear LP Spilt Milk by
Irish punk-slop-power-pop trio Oh Boland
Formed in 2012, the trio of songwriter Niall
Murphy(Guitars, Vocals) Eanna
MacDonnchadha (bass) and Simon McDonagh (drums/vocals) came together to form Oh
Boland over the course of drunken pub crawls in their small town of Tuam,
Ireland.The band eventually recorded a
couple of EPs with Brian Kelly of So Cow, and began venturing out into Galway
City, leading to involvement with Dublin-based collective Popical Island and
their release of the Delphi split LP with fellow Ireland indie-poppers Me and My
Dog. The Delphi recordings brought them
together with producer Mark Chester, who makes his own music as Ginnels and
plays in No Monster Club. After the band realized they were sitting on a number
of songs, they decided to go back in with Chester to record this first
full-length, Spilt Milk, over the
course of two days over Halloween weekend 2014 in a cottage in one of the most
isolated parts o…

First off, a moment of reflection about the Oakland fires. I've been in my own state of shock and grief and am slowly getting back to focusing on this other stuff here. My thoughts go out to everyone involved. I had friends who were there that night and made it out safely; I had quite a few more who were close to going and decided not to. The first show I ever attended in the Bay was at a warehouse (the French Fry Factory), and the first show I ever played there was at the Ghost Town Gallery. I have more musical ties to friends in the Bay and Oakland specifically than anywhere else outside of where I live, and the creative freedom and resourcefulness of the music and arts community there is the richest that I know of in the country. There have been many thoughtful posts and articles regarding that scene in particular, the culture at large, and the nature of warehouse spaces like Ghost Ship. I was asked to do an interview for NBC San Diego and only agreed to help spread that messa…